Dream Job: Creative Marketer
If you enjoy creating unique strategies, making creative decisions, and researching market trends, consider pursuing a creative marketing career. Creative marketing is a niche within the marketing industry that uses atypical strategies to meet marketing objectives and create content based on human connection. Creative marketing content includes blogging, video creation, creating internet challenges, podcasting, and guerilla techniques.
A well-known creative marketing example happened in the summer of 2014 when Pete Frates and Pat Quinn launched The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, intending to raise money for ALS Research. The challenge resulted in approximately a $135+ million return.
And the Skittles’ Taste the Rainbow campaign is another example of a highly successful marketing campaign that has been used for decades.
Education
Marketers are currently in-demand because companies want to reach potential customers through alternative routes. But creative marketing is a competitive career choice, and landing a role in this field can be difficult without the proper education, portfolio, and network.
One can take many academic routes to land a creative marketing role. A Bachelor's in Marketing, Business, or Communications is needed for traditional marketing roles. But for creative marketing, there are a variety of options.
Therefore, students can be advantageous to pursue more creative disciplines, such as Fine Arts, English, Graphic Design, Advertising, etc. According to Zippia, “79% of marketing and creative directors hold a bachelor’s degree and 10% hold an associate degree.”
Acquiring certification or attending a boot camp is also a valuable option. Some examples include UC Berkeley’s Digital Marketing Bootcamp, Cannes Lions’ online courses in Marketing, Google Ad’s Certification program, and Amazon’s Advertising Certification Program.
Landing a Job
Creativity is most important to recruiters. Examples of creativity are website creation, a portfolio, a unique resume, a video, etc. But before you can market a product, you must first market and sell yourself to a potential employer.
Creating a portfolio highlighting your work talent is a great way to show your capabilities. You can start with a website describing your professional background, work examples, and professional interests. And while some may create models of their work through university, you can also use alternative methods such as freelancing and creating spec work to use as examples.
Freelancing allows you to gain experience and be able to work on a variety of projects that will diversify your portfolio. Spec work, also known as speculative work, is any creative work designers submit to prospective clients before securing their work and equitable fees.
Spec work is a great option when you don’t have particular assignments through school or work to build your portfolio because you can use your work as examples for potential employers.
According to Glassdoor, the average yearly salary for a creative marketing associate as of September 2022 is $49,259. And a creative marketing manager's annual salary is $78,987.
What Does a Marketing Creative Do?
A creative marketer must create a vision, manage it, and deliver it. Creatives handle many responsibilities, such as decision-making, product promotion, creative strategy, planning, managing campaigns, creating and maintaining budgets, coordinating teams, researching market trends, and discussing the success of campaigns with clients post-completion.
First, a creative marketer forms a creative strategy with clients, develops campaigns, creates effective strategies, and sets the budget. Next, they allocate jobs to various parts of the team, confirm that the budget is maintained, and coordinate internal and external teams to ensure everyone is on track and working together.
Lastly, a creative marketer delivers the final vision, monitors the relevant analytics and metrics, and finishes final communication threads with clients.
Why Should You Become a Marketing Creative?
Creative Marketing has become essential in the digital landscape, especially with the rise of social media and the barrage of ads on consumers daily. Ignoring outside noise and gaining traction with an audience who feels a connection to your content is a challenge. Creative marketers have the freedom to generate content through different verticals and experiences. Notably, having the latitude to develop from a place of emotion is a unique perk to this niche.
As technology advances and new social media platforms arise, there will always be an advancement in marketing types that can garner audience attention. Working in this field allows for limitless creativity, and tools to create those visions are constantly evolving.
